Performative Well-Being: Conditions of Sharing (2018)

Since Ruukku 8 has asked us to consider “conditions of sharing”, it seems apt, and interesting, to start this exposition about the conditions of sharing of performative well-being through a dialogue with the conditions of sharing that the Ruukku 8 editors, Mika, Tero, and Leena, have offered us. Here we go!

One of the good outcomes of Alex’s strategy and process is that it engaged him with Ruukku and helped the two (unequal) parties to learn something about each other. A process that was referred to as struggle. Participatory dialogue with the journal’s editors and its organizers might not exactly challenge the power but definitely can be the first step to gain an insight to the mechanics of an organization or institution. Alex learned about Ruukku’s sharing conditions, its participants, methods and flexibilities. Similarly, Ruukku gained knowledge and experience on how to deal with other researchers in similar situations in future. And, now that the paper is out, it can also be used for educational purposes for the rest of society or certain communities.

Condition

What I like to focus on is not the sharing and collective aspect of this process, but the structural definition of ‘condition’ (which was mentioned in Step 2 by Alex). The sharing and collective aspects of the project is without a focus and can be dissected individually in depth in another venture. The abstract categories such as unconventional, interactive, collaborative, participatory, and performative might all share a common dichotomy, but they are all also very different topics.

For example, Hannah Arednt’s ‘Human condition’ is considered right-wing (by some radical-leftists and neocolonialists such as Jodi Dean) or imperialist and Eurocentric (in Edward Said’s perspective [1]). Therefore, what matters is one’s ‘position’ to this ‘condition/conditions’ based on the institution’s history, power and privilege. Conditions of sharing might not be restricted to just two parties but relational to their history, power and privilege. There might be an antagonistic (not agonistic) relationship between the institution’s objective and what is presented to the general public. I like Alex’s positivism toward this situation which borrowing from Mouffe, he referred to as ‘an agonistic struggle’. A Condition of distinguishing agonistic from antagonistic according to Mouffe is differentiating the social from political:

The political is linked to the acts of hegemonic institution. It is in this sense that one has to differentiate the social from the political. The social is the realm of sedimented practices, that is, practices that conceal the originary acts of their contingent political institution and which are taken for granted, as if they were self- grounded. Sedimented social practices are a constitutive part of any possible society; not all social bonds are put into question at the same time. The social and the political have thus the status of what Heidegger called existentials, i.e. necessary dimensions of any societal life. If the political - understood in its hegemonic sense- involves the visibility of the acts of social institution, it is impossible to determine a priori what is social and what is political independently of any contextual reference. [2]

Although at the time of writing this review, I haven’t seen the video correspondence, but I am glad that the conception of Alex’s project (and the core idea of it) was based on the critique of pure objectivism or scientific objectivism. While Alex might be able to keenly and respectfully challenge Ruukku’s editors, participants and audience in a positive way, the conditions that made this reciprocal relationship possible might not be universal and equal to everyone, just as democracy might work for certain subjects while excluding others, and that might be what Alex wanted to attain in his piece.

The work really hits the point in analyzing and making visible systems of sharing knowledge and results, both by reflecting on the topic, and by digging into the structures themselves, i.e. the way journals works. Together with the beef / side dish of the well-being exercise, it shows two sides of the world, the matrix of knowledge, and ways of coping with the world.

The reader / audience felt perplexed in what to focus on and what this is about, but definitely the work hits the sensitivity on what is normal in sharing knowledge and how one should think about it.